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Category Archives: IH Prize 2014

For the update on my 3D Printer Art Project “Hunkered Down” I wanted to add a light element to try and create shadows of the two figures. These shadows would give it a more “secluded childhood fort” feel and make it seem more whimsical.

For the light element I purchased a LED flashlight stick from Walmart for about $5. I then had to disassemble the flashlight to get to the LED/Battery part. I was relieved to know that it was all in one piece that was small and compact and included a small button so that I could turn the light off and on. The light however had one white LED and one green one. The green light was not going to work with my project. I had to make a trip to RadioShack to purchase a replacement white LED. I found a pack of two white LEDs for $3. I then had to remove the greed LED and solder on the white one. This was accomplished successfully.

I then had to decide how to place the light so that it projected the right shadows. This is where I hit a road block. No matter where I placed the light hardly any shadow was created. The body of the project simply did not have enough depth to place the light far enough back so that it create shadow. So I had to scrap the idea of shadows and just affix the light to the top to just go with a “lighted” look.

Overall the project was a success and the resources at the Innovation House proved viable in creating art projects.

Unfortunately, my initial goal for this project could not be met, as I have continually run into structural integrity issues. What remains however, it a large joystick that requires near full body motion to use, which is similar to my initial goal of creating a controller that allows the user to use their actual movements to navigate an environment. As can be seen from the above image, the Fio v3 micro controller is wired to to the outer housing. Inside each block is a potentiometer which in turn is glued to the dowel which is rotated by the joystick. The base of the potentiometer is attached by two wires wrapped around screws to a metal bar. This ensures that the base does not rotate, but only the top, so that it can more accurately measure the dowel rotation.

The above images show how the joystick rotates inside the housing. Both the X and Y axis are free to rotate, allowing the joystick to move in a full circle.

The joystick takes the rotation data and determines which key is to be pressed for the given configuration. The key press is sent over the Serial XBee connection to an Arduino Leonardo with an XBee Shield (Seen below), which is recognized by the computer as a keyboard and mouse. The Leonardo is then attached to the computer running the virtual environment program. Once attached the joystick is able to send data to the computer and navigate the environment.

Next Tuesday’s Stetson Showcase provides an opportunity to announce the winners of the first round of the Innovation House prize and hold a brief party for ourselves. So I am inviting all members, their guests, and anyone else who can find the place to come by at 4 pm on Tuesday, April 15.

We will announce and recognize the winners of the prize.

We will have treats. Please participate in the following poll to select the menu:

I created this art piece for my Sculpture class Fall 2013. The project was to make piece from found/made objects that had a deeper meaning. I decided that I wanted to make my entire project from scratch and I wanted to use the 3D Printer to create some of the elements. I drew inspiration from my own life and ended up making a deeply personal piece. The name of the piece is “Hunkered Down.”

The supporting “C” frame of the piece is made of extra strength cardboard. I needed something that could stand on its own and support the weight of 3D printed pieces on top. I hand sew the 21 individual pillows and affixed them with hot glue. The two figures are 3D printed. I had to sand, spray paint a white base coat, and hand paint the figures in acrylic to get the look I wanted. The tree on top is also 3D printed, sanded, base coated, and hand painted. I found that sanding and applying a white base coat of spray paint is the only way to get the plastic to take acrylic paint smoothly. I wound rope to make the noose and made each individual tag on the tree from card stock and jump rings.

This piece is supposed to reflect the coping mechanisms children employ to shield themselves from domestic abuse. The two figures, one small and one large, represent siblings together making lemonade out of lemons. The pillow fort/bunker represents barriers children create to escape from all the bad. The tree represents family and on each tag hung on the tree is a word that represents parts of life that become corrupted when a child is not raised in a stable home. The noose around the tree simply means that family can be a source of great anguish and pain that could lead to death.

My Innovation house project is the hardware portion of my research into extending the functionality of 3D printers. For further information you can visit the project website at ryanthecoder.github.io

Version 1 of my machine connected to the MakerBot Replicator 2

Three dimensional printers have taken off in the past three years, and home models are now able to make intricate and interesting designs. As professional- and consumer-grade versions increase in popularity, extensibility will need to be addressed. This project explores the idea of expanding the normal 3D printer and adding a second range of motion. To test the feasibility of this I have built A electromagnetic crane attachment capable of inserting objects into a printed object.

A side view of the crane arm and how it goes into the printer

The crane is based of the Shapeoko machine but features several modifications includingi a enlarged work area, a lighter frame and most importantly an arm capable of holding several tools. The first tool implemented was the electromagnet but others could easily be used. Development has begun with the Makerbot Replicator 2 but will include other 3D printers in the future. Here is a demo of the two machines functioning together.

The inspiration behind this project was to create an alternative controller to explore virtual environments, particularly to help increase the sense of immersion in that environment. As an extended motivation, it can also be used by people who might not be able to easily use more traditional controllers, such as a keyboard and mouse, or a console controller.

This chair builds off of the work by SparkFun, and their design of a joystick, which implements two potentiometers to collect analog data about the rotation about X and Y axis.

Using XBee Modules (seen below), the chair will be able to send the movement data over a wireless network to the main computer using a Fio micro controller and an XBee USB Dongle (Nickels for scale because no one ever uses them).

With this, the joystick housing for the chair still needs to be constructed. It should look something like the following which is based on the joystick listed above:

I have decided that a series of wood, screws, and springs would work best to modify an office chair into the joystick chair.

This chair model was chosen for it’s simplicity and the fact that it was not already pre-made, so it would be easier to modify. Below are all of the materials I have bought to construct the joystick. A few springs and hooks should work to keep the chair upright when not in use. As it seen in the left image, the chair’s base is is not attached yet, so a new base for the joystick will need to be creates, as well as a new place to attach the original base.

For wood I decided to go with Aspen for the planks (because it was cheap and the signs at Lowe’s said that it was good for furniture) and Popular wood (what ever that means) for the dowel, which will provide the actual stick for the joystick. As you can see from the image below, the wood will need to be cut before it can be used. Once the wood it cut I will need to print more components so that it will act like the joystick detailed above, as well as be able to use the potentiometers.

For future, I will need to build the joystick housing and attach it to the chair. I will also need to solder the components together where needed and finish programming the chair to work with the computer.

The inspiration of this project was to create a self balancing system using a Raspberry Pi computer as the main controller of the entire robot. It was the result of a class project in Dr. Hala ElAarag’s Operating Systems. The inspiration came from a BallBot designed by the Tohoku Gakuin University. The robot showed a smooth transition throughout its balancing period, moving the ball by using 3 omni wheels at 120 degree angles. A video of the Robot is shown below:

The RapiBaBot was designed as a robot that balances itself (a basic reflex agent). The RapiBaBot uses a Raspberry Pi as the main control unit, a Polulu MinIMU-9 v2 Gryo, Accelerometer, and Compass, Big Easy Stepper Motor Driver from Arduino, and the Nema 17 stepper motors. The housing was used from an old Erector set found in Kyle Campbell’s attic, the wheels are off of a Traxxas rc car, and basic bread boards are used to connect the Raspberry Pi with the sensor and the stepper motor drivers. To connect the Nema motors with the wheels a axle was 3d printed and placed over the metal shaft of the motor. The wheels were then screwed on to the 3d printed axle.

The RapiBaBot baisically reads an output from the Polulu sensor and decides which direction it will spin its motors based off of that output. In a more in depth sequence the RapiBaBot reads the output of the sensor, uses a digital filter called a Kalman filter to remove all of the white noise from the output, and then sends the output of the Kalman filter to the PID controller. The PID controller decides then what wheels to spin based off of the location the RapiBaBot and where the RapiBaBot is at currently.

The RapiBaBot functioned fairly well, resulting a automated self-balancing robot. Issues occured usually when soldering became a problem, many boards were fried and ruined from that. Future improvements might include a system that is a self learning/balaning robot. Also many beards resulted from this project.